Posted on 08/09/2010 8:30:57 PM PDT by Palter
GM canola plant refugees from farms in North Dakota bear multiple transgenic traits
Outside a grocery store in Langdon, N.D., two ecologists spotted a yellow canola plant growing on the margins of a parking lot this summer. They plucked it, ground it up and, using a chemical stick similar to those in home pregnancy kits, identified proteins that were made by artificially introduced genes. The plant was GM—genetically modified.
That's not too surprising, given that North Dakota grows tens of thousands of hectares of conventional and genetically modified canola—a weedy plant, known scientifically as Brassica napus var oleifera, bred by Canadians to yield vegetable oil from its thousands of tiny seeds. What was more surprising was that nearly everywhere the two ecologists and their colleagues stopped during a trip across the state, they found GM canola growing in the wild. "We found transgenic plants growing in the middle of nowhere, far from fields," says ecologist Cindy Sagers of the University of Arkansas (U.A.) in Fayetteville, who presented the findings August 6 at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Pittsburgh. Most intriguingly, two of the 288 tested plants showed man-made genes for resistance to multiple pesticides—so-called "stacked traits," and a type of seed that biotechnology companies like Monsanto have long sought to develop and market. As it seems, Mother Nature beat biotech to it. "One of the ones with multiple traits was [in the middle of] nowhere, and believe me, there's a lot of nowhere in North Dakota—nowhere near a canola field," she adds.
That likely means that transgenic canola plants are cross-pollinating in the wild—and swapping introduced genes. Although GM canola in the wild has been identified everywhere from Canada to Japan in previous research, this marks the first time such plants have been shown to be evolving in this way. "They had novel combinations of transgenic traits," Sagers says. "The most parsimonious explanation is these traits are stable outside of cultivation and they are evolving."
Escaped populations of such transgenic plants have generally died out quickly without continual replenishment from stray farm seeds in places such as Canada, but canola is capable of hybridizing with at least two—and possibly as many as eight—wild weed species in North America, including field mustard (Brassica rapa), which is a known agricultural pest. "Not only is it going to jump out of cultivation; there are sexually compatible weeds all over North America," Sagers says. Adds ecologist-in-training Meredith Schafer of U.A., who led the research, "It becomes a weed [farmers] can't control."
There has been no evidence to show that the herbicide resistance genes will either increase or decrease fitness to date. The finding provides, however, a warning for future genetic modifications that might increase fitness in all kinds of plants; it will be difficult to keep those traits on the farm and out of the wild. "The big concern is traits that would increase invasiveness or weediness, traits such as drought tolerance, salt tolerance, heat or cold tolerance" says weed scientist Carol Mallory-Smith of Oregon State University—all the traits that Monsanto and others are currently developing to help crops adapt to climate change. "These traits would have the possibility of expanding a species' range." In the case of canola, consider it done—at least in North Dakota.
This is not the first transgenic crop to escape into the wild in the U.S.; herbicide-resistant turf grass being tested in Oregon spread as well in 2006. And GM canola is not a regulated plant, "therefore no protocols are required by the regulatory agencies to reduce or prevent escape," notes ecologist Allison Snow of The Ohio State University. "The next question is: 'So what?' What difference does it make if the feral canola or any species that hybridize with it have two transgenes for herbicide resistance?"
Canola modified to resist either the herbicide glufosinate (brand name Liberty) or glyphosate (brand name Roundup) has been available in the U.S. since 1989—and unregulated since 1998 and 1999, respectively for the two herbicides. "These results are not new for Canadian researchers and to be expected if two types of transgenic herbicide-resistant canola are commercially grown," says Suzanne Warwick of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a government agency.
A common source for GM canola in the wild is seed that has scattered during harvest or fallen off a truck during transport. "Because about 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian canola crop is biotech, it is reasonable to expect a survey of roadside canola to show similar levels of biotech plants," said Tom Nickson, environmental policy lead at Monsanto, in a prepared statement.
Nor does Monsanto claim ownership of the escaped plants, even those with multiple transgenes, according to company spokesman John Combest. "It has never been, nor will it be, Monsanto policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented traits are present in fields as a result of inadvertent means," although researchers would have to obtain a license from the company to work with the GM plant.
It remains to be seen how much sexual mingling such transgenic plants do; U.A.'s Sagers plans to do greenhouse trials starting in a few weeks. But it does provide a compelling example of how genes might move through a given population. "This is a good model for the influence of agriculture on the evolution of native plants," she says. "We can imagine gene flow to native species. If we can imagine it happening, it probably happens."
Thaks, I have. I’m only talking about Transgenic modification, as the main area of interest.
Particular, combining human DNA with plants, and other such modifications, creating ‘new’ species of fauna.
No, but that's the implication.
Re-read the article. They found "canola" aka rape for centuries, not weeds.
A weed is a plant we haven't found a use for yet.
We were given dominion over the land, the fields, the birds and the seas.
/johnny
They are probably “french kissing” like the mutating microbes in the gulf.
Where we live. A fertile, wholesome, natural place that isn’t poisoned. A place not overrun by plants that could not exist in nature and can only have been created in labratories with technology that didn’t exist 100 years ago.
Farmers can figure out another way to grow food without resorting to genetic engineering.
Consider that plants were bred to grow on N-P-K. They don’t naturally need only N-P-K. But they were bred to grow on just those 3. Most of the nutrients in heavily farmed soil are gone. NPK gets put back in the soil periodically.
But grass, grains, vegetables, etc are all much more nutritious if the soil in which the plant grows contains a wide variety of minerals.
Sea water contains all minerals. If properly diluted, applications of plain old sea water can be made to the soil. This will replentish the minerals that are long gone from the soils, and will provide humans and animals with the trace minerals that humans and animals need in their food.
But salt water / sea water is free, so Monsanto can’t make the big $$$ there, so farmers really don’t know much about the benefits of sea water.
Of course their lawyers will have something to say about what constitutes 'trace amounts' and what behavior on the farmer's part, such as normal harvesting without taking the inordinate amount of time necessary to remove the trace amounts, constitutes a violation of their patent.
In short, the farmers are screwed and now evidently humanity.
Over time Monsanto will come up with nastier and nastier pesticides. They will simultaneously breed plants that are immune to these nasty pesticides. Meanwhile Mother Nature will be busy developing noxious weeds that are also resistant to Monsanto's nasty pesticides.
I hope we all like eating noxious weed with endive salad in a warm raspberry viniagrette.
No, they also need C, H, and O and a bunch of trace elements.
In fact, CHON makes up most of a plant, and it comes from the atmosphere, mostly.
Always has and always will.
Please provide a source for "Most of the nutrients in heavily farmed soil are gone.
The reason that we don't use gallanium in fertilizer is that plants mostly use CHON and trace elements in very tiny quantities. And gallanium isn't one of them, much. If it was, we'd use it.
Plants used NPK from the beginning in larger quantities. We figured that out. We add that to steward the land we have been given dominion over.
/johnny
Well, there’s a real difference between breeding and the genetic engineering that Monsanto and others are doing.
I think it’s called gene splicing and it’s completely unnnatural. And that’s what Monsanto has done.
Here’s “The Planet vs Monsanto”
Monsanto’s other main line of products is corn and cotton seeds containing genes for pest-killing toxins produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. Organic farmers have been spraying these natural pesticides on their crops for decades. Monsanto’s technology puts the stuff right into the plant.
Plants take up what’s in the soil. Whether they need them or not.
It’s not that the Plants need the nutrients. Humans need the nutrients.
It’s not a farming issue as much as a public health issue. We used to get trace minerals from plants and from the animals that ate those plants. Those trace minerals have been taken up by the plants from the soil and eaten by us a long time ago.
We need those trace elements. Scientifically, we might not even know why. But we do need them.
That pretty much says it all about your opinion. No science, no biblical backing, just feeling.
And, no, actually not all trace elements are taken up by plants.
Billions of people in the world require fats and carbs to survive. Yes, they require some trace elements. How much of what isn't settled.
The follow through to your ideal is to kill off a lot of humans for lack of fats and carbs, over your feeling about trace elements.
Because without modern agriculture, lots of folks die. Badly.
/johnny
The addition of salt to soil kills plants. Forever.
dumb idea.
Escaped populations of such transgenic plants have generally died out quickly without continual replenishment from stray farm seeds in places such as Canada, but canola is capable of hybridizing with at least two—and possibly as many as eight—wild weed species in North America, including field mustard (Brassica rapa), which is a known agricultural pest. “Not only is it going to jump out of cultivation; there are sexually compatible weeds all over North America,” Sagers says.
What they’re saying is that it’s going to happen. They aren’t saying that it has happened already.
So, yeah, I guess I was being vague or inaccurate when I said “happening here” What’s “projected to happen here” is more precise. What I meant was mostly “what they’re talking about here is that ...”
They are spreading FUD, as usual.
No, I’m saying nothing about feeling.
What I’m saying is that, GOD (since you’re looking for biblical backing) put those minerals in the soil for us to eat for a reason. Man is just beginning to understand the various functions all of the various minerals play in our bodies.
We know a decent amount the role many minerals play, but we don’t know everything. We haven’t studied it enough.
But what we do know is that every so often more new information comes out describing the functions of minerals in the body. Since this information comes out periodically, in dribs or drabs, and has been for a while, it is more reasonable to assume that more information is coming, rather than to assume that we have fully completely the process of discovering the specific role that minerals play in the body.
I’ve been harvesting seeds from the garden this year. Not sure if it’s true, but a friend told me I’ll get bigger yields from second generation plants.
Wrong.
Drink 20 gallons of water, regular bottled water, real quick.
You’d die.
Does that make water poison?
I just did a test. I grew wheatgrass. Watered one bunch with regular fresh water, and the other bunch with seawater diluted 20 parts fresh water - 1 part sea water. They both grew about the same.
The advantage isn’t in the yields, although some say that it does improve yields, its that the plants are taking in the minerals from the seawater. You put it on grasses that animals eat, the grasses pull in the trace minerals - all of them, the animals eat the enriched grasses, and their tissues will contain those trace minerals. All grasses, grains, vegetables, will benefit from the additional trace minerals, although it appears that grasses / grains take up more of those trace minerals than most vegetables do.
GM grain has been show to be detrimental to live stock and other recipients of this ‘food’. They will eventually suffer from inability to reproduce, and die off. GM grain is a biological time bomb that will destroy the natural life cycle.
Ask your self these questions: Is the genetic code in the cells of organisms and higher forms of life completely reconstructed for each cell irrespective of the genetic DNA of nutrients? To put it another way, does nature provide a ‘matched set’ genetically speaking in the DNA cell structure of lower life forms to higher forms. If so can GM lower cells beneficially support higher life forms cells? Or will the altered GM DNA be incorporated with adveerse side effects. Has biology shown that cell DNA is completely reconstructed accurately without regard to the nutrient’s DNA composition?
Just asking?
try reading a little more and opining less.
some plants are a little more tolerant of salt than others. watering cropland with salt water will render the land USELESS to the more salt sensitive crops, FOREVER.
Really a dumb idea.
We already have a problem with using groundwater as irrigation water. Ground water contains more minerals than rain water does. Years and years of groundwater irrigation has increased the salinity of the soil, and hence decreased the fertility of the soil.
And you want to use sea water.
dumb. really really dumb.
And as for your asinine little experiment, no comment. I’ll let you figure out yourself why it is so dumb. That’s the only way you are going to learn anything, apparently.
http://www.pcdf.org/meadows/potato.htm
“Breaking the species barrier. Nature doesn’t normally mix the genes of bacteria and potatoes, or frogs and lettuces, or pigs and people. A species barrier prevents sunflowers from mating with chimpanzees. The barrier isn’t absolute, especially not with bacteria and viruses. But, contrary to the claims of biotech companies, moving genes from any species to any species is not just a small extension of the age-old human practice of breeding new varieties of roses or cattle. It’s a whole new twist in evolution.”
And, I should add, playing God.
People have done this before. I didn’t invent this.
Look up Dr. Maynard Murray. There are many farmers who add sea salt to their crops, grassland, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Energy-Agriculture-Maynard-Murray/dp/091131170X
That’s a link to “Sea Energy Agriculture” by Murray.
From the “Product Description”
Product Description
Maynard Murray was a medical doctor who researched the crucial importance of minerals - especially trace elements - to plants and animals. Beginning in 1938 and continuing through the 1950s, Dr. Murray used sea solids - mineral salts remaining after water is evaporated from ocean water - as fertilizer on a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains. His extensive experiments demonstrated repeatedly and conclusively that plants fertilized with sea solids and animals fed sea-solid-fertilized feeds grow stronger and more resistant to disease.
Sea Energy Agriculture recounts Murray’s experiments and presents his astounding conclusions. The work of this eco-pioneer was largely ignored during his lifetime, and his book became a lost classic - out-of-print for more than 25 years. Now this rare volume is once again available, with a new foreward and afterword by the founder of Acres U.S.A., Charles Walters.
It’s a rare practice, but not unknown or unstudied.
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